Saxby Chambliss: so ordered. mr. chambliss: i say that gregg vote 3673 requires a 60-vote margin. madam president, i yield five minutes to the senator from alabama, senator sessions. the presiding officer: the senator

Jeff Sessions: from alabama is recognized for five minutes. mr. sessions: thank you, madam president. i want to thank senator lincoln for her articulate and effective explanation of the difficulties in the dorgan-grassley

Jeff Sessions: amendment. i absolutely am confident it will undermine the traditional agricultural safety net for farmers in the southeast. there are a lot of reasons for that. i can't say for sure what it's like in

Jeff Sessions: other areas of the country. apparently the amendment would not have the same effect in every year -- at least in the same percentage of farmers. but since 2002 bill, input costs to produce agricultural

Jeff Sessions: products has increased, particularly in the southeast and particularly for cotton. for example, one of our most significant cash crops. the cost of phosphate and diesel fuel have risen dramatically. i

Jeff Sessions: don't mean a little bit, some have doubled. however, support payments have remained level. the support payments have remained level. as a result, the safety net already has, in effect, been cut in half.

Jeff Sessions: the committee-passed ll singly essentially continues that procedure, in effect, having a safety net that's half of what it was a few years ago. producer groups in the southeast understand that the

Jeff Sessions: federal budget reality is not something they want to deny and the lack of availability of new funding impacts our ability to provide increases in the state net as we would normally expect to occur

Jeff Sessions: but they are united in their concern and opposition to any effort to further reduce the the safety net. the grassley-dorgan amendment would not reduce producers in the midwest. corn and wheat are not

Jeff Sessions: expensive commodities to produce.~ as a result payments do not have to be as high to support farmers in those areas when prices fall. crops grown in the southeast are a high value commodity that cost

Jeff Sessions: a great deal to produce, for example, cotton currently cts approximately $450 to $500 to plant and harvest per acre. that's a lot of money. in alabama the statewide yield is approximately $700 pounds per

Jeff Sessions: yield year to year. with current market conditions, producers are barely able to breakeven with the safety net currently in place. any further attempt to limit payments or destroy agricultural production

Jeff Sessions: of high value commodities in the southeast. now, i would suggest that our colleagues take real note of what the farm bill did. when you actually compute the support payments levels, they were at $360,000

Jeff Sessions: before. now with the changes in amendments and loophole closing that has occurred, it has dropped to $100,000. multiple payments are no longer effective. and a decrease limit -- decreasing the

Jeff Sessions: limit even furtsder has the pro -- further has the potential to be very, very harmful. let me share this thought with my colleagues, my farm family, the farm family on my mother's side and my father's

Jeff Sessions: side and they have been in the country in rural alabama for 150 years. i know something about farming. but there's more to farming than just the farmer. my father, who had a country store when i

Jeff Sessions: was in junior high school, purchase add farm equipment dealership there are a lot of other people who support agriculture than just the farmers. and i have to tell you to be effective and make a living

Jeff Sessions: in farm in alabama today and i think throughout the nation, you have to be engaged in large-scale operation with expensive equipment. you have to invest a tremendous amount of money in bringing in a

Jeff Sessions: crop. and if the crop prices fall, can you be devastated. and who, as senator lincoln said, is going to fill the gap? it's not going to be somebody else here, it's going to be somebody else around

Jeff Sessions: the world who is receiving far more subsidies than our people are receiving here. but i want t o go back t go this point there is a farm equipment dealer. there is -- there is a fertilizer dealer.

Jeff Sessions: there is a seed peep -- there is the seed people. there are the people who labor and harvest it and the people who process the dot kotton -- cotton, the soybeans, the peanuts and convert them to

Jeff Sessions: a marketable product. the bankers who loan the money, the hardware store that supplies their needs. all of this -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. sessions: i ask for one additional

Jeff Sessions: minute, unanimous consent. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: this whole infrastructure is dependent on the farmer. in alabama and most areas of the country, farmers are larger, they

Jeff Sessions: have far more at risk. if they go under, not only do they go under, but entire industries go under. i think we cut this effectively. we reduced the abuses in the system. i thank t committee for doing

Jeff Sessions: so and oppose the dorgan-grassley. amendment. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president?si earlier i asked for a unanimous consent to include the greg amendment to be voted on following the two alexander

Jeff Sessions: amendments. and in my consent i asked for 15 minutes o debate equally divided. i would now ask unanimous consent that that 15-minute request be withdrawn. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. chambliss:

Saxby Chambliss: i would now recognize the senator from louisiana, senator landrieu, for five minutes. a senator: thank you, mr. president, i am pleased to join my colleagues, the senator from alabama and the senators